The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1887-03-04
FOOD FRAUDS.
The shameful Use OF Ane ana Alum
In Cheap Baking Powders.

In Cheap Baking Powders.
Many food frauds. such as chicory
coffee or watered milk, although they
are a swindle in commercial sense,
are often tolerated because they do
not particularly affect the health of the
consumer; but when an article like
baking powder, that enters largely
into the food of every family, and is
relied upon for the healthtul prepare
ration Of almost every meal, Is so made
as to carry highly injurious, If not
ranking poisonous, elements into the
bread 10 the imminent danger of the
entire community, 1t is the duty of the
press to denounce the practice in the
most emphatic terms
Among recent important discover
les by the food analysts il that Prof.
Mott the u. S. Government Chemist,
of large amounts Of lime aud alum in
the cheap baking powders. THESE
are, one the most dangerous, and the
other the most useless, aduterants yet
found in the w-grade, inferior bak-
ing powders. 1t is startling fact that
Of over one hundred different brands
of baking powders so far analysed,
comprising all those sold in this vicin-
ity, not one Of them, with the single
exception Of the Royal Baking Pow
der, was found free from both lime
and alum. The chief service of lime
is to add weight. 1t is true that lime,
when subjected to heat, gives of GER
tain amount Of carbonic acid gas, but
quick lime is left--a caustic so pow
erfGl that it is used by tanners to eat
the hair from hides of animals, and in
dissecting rooms to more quickly rot
the flesh from the bones of dead sub
jects. A small quantity of dry lime
upon the tongue, or in the eye, produ-
ces painful effects; how much more Sc
rious must these effects be upon the
delicate membranes of the stomach,
intestines and kidneys, more particu-
larly of infants and children, and espe-
cially when the lime is taken into the
system day after day. and with almost
evety meal. This is said by physicians
to be one of the ceief causes Of indi-
gestion, dyspepsia, and those painful
diseases of the kidneys now SO preva-
lent. Instances of the most serious
affections of the latter organs from
drinking lime waters found in some
sections of the West are noted in every
medical journal.
Adultcraton with lime is quite as
much to be dreaded as with alum,
which has heretofore received the
most emphatic condemnation from
every food analyst, physician and
chemist, for the reason that, while
alum is probably partially dissolved
and passed off in gas by the heat of
baking, it is impossible to destroy or
change the nature OF lime in any
degree. so that the entire amount
in the baking powder passes, with all
its injurious properties, into the stom-
ach. When we state that the chemists
have found twelve per cent, or one
eighth of the entire weight of some
samples of baking powder Analysed,
to be lime, the wlckedness of the adul-
iteration will be fully apparent.
Pure baking powders are one of the
chief aids TO the cook in preparing
wholesome food. While those are to
be obtained of well. established repu-
tation, like the Royal, of whose purity
there has never been AID cannot be
question, it is proper to avoid all 9TH
ers.